(Newser)
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg tells the AP, in a roundabout way, that she won't be retiring from the Supreme Court "anytime soon." The significance? Ginsburg is 78 and the court's oldest justice. She's also had health problems, and Democrats' worst-case scenario is that President Obama loses re-election, and Ginsburg has to retire soon afterward. She could, of course, retire now and allow Obama to make a new left-learning pick.

"She has in her power the ability to prevent a real shift in the balance of power on the court," says the dean of the University of California at Irvine law school. "On the other hand, there's the personal. How do you decide to leave the United States Supreme Court?" Ginsburg would not address the topic in an interview, but she wrote a note to AP in typical good humor saying she is still waiting for the return from a traveling exhibit of a Josef Albers painting that normally hangs in her office. "Couldn't think of leaving until after it is returned to me, which won't be anytime soon," she wrote.

We need to clean house in the supreme court,they are suppose to be unbias. Thomas and Scalia going to private meeting with the Koch brothers. Thomas wife accepting 540.000 dollars in contributions from the koch brothers, after thomas vote for citizens united another blow for we the people.

Person12345

Jul 3, 2011 8:42 AM CDT

Isn't it too bad that our Supreme Court has become a political football, to be tossed from one party to another. Ms. Ginsburg is ill, but they rarely resign and if she is trying to keep a Democrat on the Court, then that is a clear violation of Constitution in that the Supreme Court should remain non-partisan.